Peter S. Henne

My forthcoming article, “Weapon of the strong: Government Support for Religion and Majoritarian Terrorism,” (written with Nilay Saiya and Ashlyn W. Hand) is out in the current issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution. A copy is available on my publications page.

I am excited to announce that I have been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.

As part of the attempt to minimize the spread and impact of Covid-19, the University of Vermont has switched all classes to remote learning. For my two classes this semester, I am recording short videos as an overview of each lecture, and uploading the powerpoint slides with extensive notes. I am also using the Blackboard discussion boards to have conversation about the lectures during the regularly-scheduled class time. If anyone has questions on this, feel free to email me.

I had a few VT media appearances over the past week, discussing the latest events in Iran. I talked with Dave Gram about the impact of the US killing of Qassim Suleimani. I also talked with WCAX about the attack itself and Iran’s retaliation.

I have a review of Nilay Saiya’s Weapon of Liberty forthcoming in Nationalities Papers, and it is available through First View here. I think this is a great book, but worry about how to convince people who are skeptical of religion’s importance to read it.

I have a new article in the Washington Post’s “Monkeycage” feature, arguing that, instead of Saudi Arabia&the UAE pulling America into war with Iran, they may actually be restraining us. You can read it here.

I review Lee Marsden’s Religion and International Security in the latest issue of Global Change, Peace and Security. You can read it here.

My forthcoming article in Terrorism and Political Violence is now available online- https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ZEGMZY5FC8SJGURGBHAK/full?target=10.1080%2F09546553.2019.1632833& . The print version will be available in the future.

I wrote a commentary piece for the Brookings Institute/Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs’ “geopolitics of religious soft power project.” This project explores how states use religion in their foreign policies, and my contribution looks at America and Russia, drawing on research for my new book project. It is available here.

I’m excited to announce that I have a new article forthcoming in Terrorism and Political Violence. “Assessing the impact of the Global War on Terrorism on terrorism threats in Muslim countries” uses data from my book to assess whether Muslim states’ cooperation with America on counterterrorism helped or hurt when it came to terrorist threats. I find that it actually seemed to help; states that cooperated with the United States experienced a drop in deaths from terrorist attacks. I have a working paper available on my website, and will update it when the final article becomes available.